Venture Republic Group (VRG) announced today its acquisition of Singapore based startup, Flocations, Southeast Asia’s largest marketplace for online tour packages.
However, no other details such as the acquisition amount, were revealed.
Flocations, founded in 2012 and operating in Singapore and Indonesia, offers over 80 commercial agencies and 6,000 tour packages across the region.
Kei Shibata: Offers more exciting travel experiences with acquisition.
The company fits in well with VRG, which has a successful packages business in Japan with its brands such as travel.jp and hotel.jp.
Attesting to this Kei Shibata, CEO of Venture Republic, who sits on Flocations’ board of directors, said: “The Flocations team has always impressed me with their innovative approach to travel discovery. Their current business is very much in sync with ours. We can’t wait to leverage on what they’ve built so far to offer more exciting travel experiences for the region.”
Tudor Coman, Flocations CEO and cofounder, said of the acquisition: “Southeast Asia will be the largest travel market in the world in the next 5 years and Flocations is extremely excited it will be there with VRG.”
Flocations cofounders, Venkatraman Dhamodaran and Shaw Chian, will also be joining VRG.
Dhamodaran said: “VRG has a very successful packages business in Japan and we can’t wait to build better travel products for the region together.”
Flocations will maintain its regular operations, while pursuing new commercial partners in the region.
Southeast Asia’s dynamic economies, powered by a rising middle class, are strengthening regional travel. According to a report by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in 2013, the region posted the highest growth among Asian sub regions, with 9% more arrivals, largely due to continued strong intra regional demand.
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